Indomitable Flock of Balloons Got Wild
Francesca Barchiesi1.5 million balloons were released in once to create a spectacular show becoming uncontrollable and dangerous.
1.5 million balloons were released in once to create a spectacular show becoming uncontrollable and dangerous.
Besides the extensive collection of animals from around the planet, the Amsterdam City Zoo Artis also houses some local wild species on its premises who immigrated into the zoo on …
Only for the title already I wanted to post this as soon as I read it on Nature.com. The newsarticle is entitled " GM crop escapes into the American wild ." Brilliant! Let's walk …
How wild animals and cities are adapting to each other.
Would you like a dog snout, cat eyes or fluffy bunny ears? The choice is yours. Virtual selfie filters have become a widespread phenomenon on social media platforms such as …
In some parts of Australia it is no exception to hear voices when there are no people near. The voices are the chatter of wild cockatoos that where taught words and sentences from escaped domesticated cockatoos.
Mandy Meißner's "Wildgruen", a plant that can move and communicate. In her view, plants need to be freed from their isolation, both in the way that they can only lean towards the …
Recently, I had some free time to return to my old passion of landscape painting. But somehow things seemed to have changed in the wilderness.
Quite a multi-layeredness of the artificially strengthened immune systems they have in place at the Thai border. Microbes and terrorist: hand in your passport. Peculiar image of …
Bikes seem to be a new life form. They are everywhere in the city. On the street, in bike parking, but also just as plentiful on the bottom of channels, on top of street lanterns …
What are you doing this weekend? If you happen to be in the neighborhood you may want to attend the Next Nature lecture at the Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire. Anthony and the …
Old ironworks in Germany have become more natural than "real" nature.
Carolina Sobecka released her tiger into the night, projected by a moving car. The animal's movements are programmed to correspond to the speed of the car. As the car moves, the …
Typically when we look at nature we exclude ourselves. Finally there is a book looking at people looking at animals.
The idea of colonizing Mars has become the big speculative future of humanity on Earth. But, artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg has radically different ideas to contribute to the …
The human body has always been an incredible machine, from the grand feats of strength and athleticism it can accomplish down to the fine details of each vein, nerve, and cell. …
Invasive species become the animal symbols for a man-made world.
Previously, experiences of time emerged from nature as given – offering seasons, the rhythm of humans, plants and animals. Nowadays, people integrate nature-time, body-time, inner-time, clock-time, and global 24/7 systems-time. Human beings, in past, current and next natures, have to deal with emergence and design of time in order to survive.
Joyce Hwang discusses the challenges for designers, and gains for citizens, of living in a truly biosynthetic city.
The Made and the Born: Neo-Biological civillization, written by Kevin Kelly, excerpt from Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World, …
From nutrients within an organism, to organisms within collectives, to populations within a territory and so on - nature offers models on how to deal with highly complex systems.
We recently spoke to Ilari Laamanen, to peel the outcrops of Momemtum9, and unveil the overlapping themes to the next nature philosophy.
As the ills of factory farming become more pronounced, people are increasingly gravitating towards vegetarian or pescatarian diets. Besides producing a large percentage of our …
Could the biggest, most successful discount store in the world really meet your every need? Twenty-four hours a day? That's what the TV spots are saying. Really living there. …
There's a long line of cars And they're trying to get through There's no single explanation There's no central destination But this long line of cars Is trying to get through And …
Japanese scientists made people drive in circles to find out how traffic jams get born. Related: Human Swarms | Harvesting Traffic Information through GSMs | The things we design …
Today, 122 years ago, on 13 september 1899, Henry Bliss became the first pedestrian known to be killed by an automobile in North America. Although not the first, he was certainly …
Over the last few days the Next Nature website has been suffering symptoms of dementia due to a hardware failure at our very fancy and luxurious web hosting provider Media Temple …
Twenty-first century society draws from a world that is less determined by objects and increasingly shaped by connectivity. The clear either/or distinctions that formerly informed …
Big data is reforming politics, but is it for the better?
During the event The Biosphere Code, Stockholm University researcher Victor Galaz and colleagues outlined a manifesto for algorithms in the environment.
Stephen Hawking gives his opinion on what technological unemployment, aka machines taking over our jobs, can represent for future human societies.
Would you pray to a Robot deity? A group of Japanese buddhists is already doing so. Meet Mindar , the robot divinity shaped after the buddhist Goddess of Mercy, also known as …
The first essay ever written on Next Nature, published in Next Nature Pocket and in Entry Paradise, New Design Worlds . ( download pdf ) (German version: Erkundungen im Nächste …
Lecture this Friday on Next Nature by Mieke Gerritzen at Lift conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Expect wild trees, wild beaches, wild animals, wild implants and wild corporations.
Steven Levy writes in Wired on the unexpected turn of the Artificial Intelligence revolution: rather than whole artificial minds, it consists of a rich bestiary of digital fauna, …
At just a millimeter wide, Xenobots are “neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal", they are "a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism”, says …
How would you feel if robots inherited ethical complications of existence?
Extinct European bisons are being reintroduced in parks. But what makes a national park?
Smiling broadly and rattling with enthusiasm, the 33-year-old Rylana Doesburg shows off a QR-code on her phone: an angular pattern of black and white squares. “Thanks to this …
Before money came into existence, trading was all we knew. Farmers in China traded their spades for food and other goods, and this continued up until a point where most spades …
John Zerzan, published in Green Anarchy issue #24 - Spring/Summer 2007 The rapidly mounting toll of modern life is worse than we could have imagined. A metamorphosis rushes …
Dolphins in Port Adelaide, Australia, have been observed performing a remarkable trick : tail-walking, a trait so rare it has only been seen in the wild one other time. More …
Rachel Armstrong discusses living buildings, Venice's foundations, millennial nature and how to improve our future.
It takes years to design a new banknote, having hundreds of people working on every little detail, all done under the watchful eye of governments and professionals. However today, …
The connection we share through the Internet has laid the foundation for a whole new digital infrastructure, in which blockchain technology is heralded by many believers for being …
Written by Kevin Kelly , published in The Technium . I claim that technology has its own agenda. What is the evidence that technology as a whole, or the technium as I call it, is …
Is the evolution of the single bladed razor into an exorbitant five–bladed vibrating gizmo the outcome of human needs, or is there another force in play? Say hello to Razorius …
When techno–optimist and fellow at the Hybrid Reality Institute , Jason Silva, meets with Richard Doyle, author of Darwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants and the Evolution of the …
Black wolves should probably not exist. The same species as their gray relatives, these wolves have a genetic mutation that causes them to produces excess melanin, a pigment …
How technology becomes nature in seven steps
Technology is nestling itself within us and between us, has knowledge about us and can act just like us.
A musical robot able to improvise a jazz solo in response to an actual person performing jazz.
Australian programmer started a social experiment called “Twitch Plays Pokémon”. Over a Million People Play Pokémon in Social Experiment
The first beauty contest judged by complex algorithms has sparked controversy after biased results.
Researchers developed tiny, autonomous robots able to repair circuits.
Our online reputation is becoming a valuable currency that is hard to earn and easy to lose.
A neural network helps computers with image recognition. It is usually tough to fool. But one group of researchers has found a way to reliably trick it.
Scientists believe the introduction of a hormone-like system, such as the one found in the human brain, could give AI the ability to reason and make decisions like people do. …
For years, normality has been stretched nearly to its breaking point, a rope pulled tighter and tighter, waiting for a nip of the black swan’s beak to snap it in two. Now that the …
‘Advertising is the cave art of the 20th century’, Marshall McLuhan said. Advertisings are mythical depictions of hunting and gathering rituals, that don’t take place on some …
Have you heard the buzz on virtual money in online games? Some years ago the first virtual millionaire was announced, yet there have also been reports on people being practically …
The protozoa Toxoplasma gondii makes an unobtrusive home in nearly every warm-blooded species, but it's prolific life is limited: Toxo can only reproduce in cat stomachs. The …
Birds use whatever they can get their beaks on to build nests, including cigarette butts. Surprising new research from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México shows that …
An ingenious Russian crow that used a lid as a snowboard to slide down a snowy roof persuaded millions of YouTube viewers that animals are not merely beasts of burden – they also …
Though disgusting, sewage is an abundant, nutrient-rich resource. Researchers at the University of West England have taken advantage of this fact by creating a robot that turns …
The eBird app is bringing big data to bird spotting.
Engineering mosquitoes to ignore the scent of human flesh.
Robots use swarm intelligence to rebuild coral reefs.
A drone take a dog out for a walk, guiding and monitoring the pet.
Although there seems to be no effective drug in use to cure malaria, a scientist robot named Eve may have found a cure.
Scientists in Russia have taken a next step in the development of artificial intelligence by creating a "brain" that is able to educate itself.
While the Watson technology is exponentially increasing its processing power on an annual basis and steadily moving from answering trivia questions, to cooking advice, onto medical advice, it is about time we confront it with the million dollar question: "Watson, what do you want?".
With recent successful experiments, we may see doctors switching from the single forceps to hordes of so-called microgrippers.
Robot Cheetah has grown up! Scientists at MIT's Biometrics Robotics Lab have now trained their robo-feline Cheetah to detect obstacles and jump over hurdles as it runs, making it …
The U.S. Secret Service is conducting test drone flights over Washington, D.C.
We already recognize faces in our cars, now it is time for our cars to recognize our faces.
Part two of a ten part series exploring the design of an invisible technology: money.
Mercedes-Benz just revealed the first self-driving city coach and took it to the streets of Amsterdam for a test drive.
Meet the firefighter drone, she is the best at extinguishing fires and keep every species safe!
Case IH debuted their autonomous farm tractor that plants, monitors crops and harvests, all without a driver.
An AI draws streets and spaces stitching together its artificial memories of real places.
This seven-minute video, titled 'Slaughterbots', shows a future in which palm-sized autonomous drones commit untraceable massacres.
Last night we were invited to celebrate the plenty at the third edition of the Neo-Futurist Dinner series at Mediamatic in Amsterdam. This time, the night was hosted by Dutch …
It’s been called China’s “pork miracle.” For centuries, pig-rearing in the country was predominantly a backyard occupation. (The etymology of the Chinese character for “home” …
How can we design a cryptocurrency for the better of humanity and ecology? In this last chapter of the crypto deep dive series , we will dissect two kinds of blockchain …
As early as 2009-10 , researchers were looking at Twitter data mining as a way to predict the incidence of flu. At the time, the H1N1 virus, or “swine flu,” had made the jump from …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Would you like to see your work here? Get in touch …
The E-volver is an 'image breeding machine', which takes inspiration from the methods of evolutionary biology to produce colourful,ever-changing images. The software generates …
"While battling the forces of nature, man has become more and more independent of physical conditions. At the same time, however, he has become more and more dependent of …
Peculiar image created by Matías Lecaros (Santiago, Chile), promoting that famous boardgame . Inspired -of course- by Damien Hirsts Some Comfort Gained from the Acceptance of the …
Last year Google invested four million in 23andme , a commercial research center that maps out your DNA for 1000 bucks. Now Google also invested in Navigenics , a company that …
A single hail storm can destroy the year's harvest. For over 25 years, this gun has been used by vine and fruit growers in France, Spain, Austria and Belgium for one purpose: …
"Visa has elements of Jeffersonian democracy, it has elements of the free market, of government franchising – almost every kind of organization you can think about. But it is none …
Economy is ecology? Technology Review writes the price of oil has dipped to levels that could be far too low for many advanced-biofuel startups to succeed, especially those that …
Coca-Cola© succeeds in what most NGO's try to achieve: getting the goods to the poor in the 3rd world Africa. For most people there, a Coke is easier to get and cheaper than a …
A mother takes her sick child to the doctor. Who, after careful investigation, concludes the child has a 'virus infection'. The kid is offended and shouts: "But Doctor! I am not a …
Susan Blackmore studies memes: ideas that replicate themselves from brain to brain like a virus. She makes a bold new argument: Humanity has spawned a new kind of meme, the teme, …
Every medium was new oneday . This point is beautifully illustrated in the movie Quest for fire ( La Guerre de feu by Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1981), a must-see for Next Nature …
While most people are still prudently changing light bulbs and recycling coffee cups to fight global warming – or at least their gnawing conscience – policy-makers have long moved …
No question about it, Americans have an overconsumption problem. The total outstanding balance of bank-issued credit cards per consumer was $5,710 in December 2008, according to …
This is your life. We concur. Self portrait by Kasey McMahon made of s teel, CAT5 and other data cables . Photo by Kevin Rolly . Peculiar image of the week.
Alright, we were mistaken. Money isn't virtual after all. A recent TV commercial of a Greek bank shed light on the issue. Your money lives, is anthropomorphic and inhabits an …
Earlier we have discussed the ECO currency , now here is an explanation video. The ECO currency is an alternative currency to express environmental value. People who conduct labor …
Alright the title "Making Perfect Life" ' may sound a bit 20th-century-modernistic-techno-optimistic-naive, but for the rest we are confident this conference is going to be pretty …
By analyzing billions of phone calls, researchers at Scandinavian telecom company Telenor , mapped how social connections between people – measured partly by how often they called …
The Robosaurus is the only airplane eating, fire breathing robot on the planet. Pity the thing is merely build for entertainment purposes. Perhaps this thing could finally solve …
As it is Sunday today, lets indulge in a scientific spiritual music video. Created by John Boswell . Thanks Finnigans Riverrun.
Technologist, environmentalist and nextnature thinker avant la lettre Kevin Kelly , muses on what technology means in our lives – from its impact at the personal level to its …
In the short movie Blinky, on a boy and his robot, director Ruari Robinson reflects on our daily dealings with technology and its risks. Alex is a child growing up in a family …
In March, Mazda recalled 65,000 cars, not because of any structural faults in the vehicle, but because the engineers had inadvertently created the perfect habitat for a tiny …
http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0 Narrated by the incomparable David Attenborough, this footage goes to show that urban birds really are smarter . The cross-walking …
No, the peculiar image above was not created by an in vitro fertilized child from the combined DNA of Escher, Mondrian and Pollock, but rather by 21th century designer Remco van …
Protei is a sailing robot that's designed to clean up oil spills without human assistance. After sailing upwind, the bot drifts downwind, zigg-zagging across the surface to absorb …
Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick at Wired Magazine talks about the nature of technology and propose to define technology as the 7th Kingdom of Life.
It's been known for a while that birds increase their singing volume to make themselves heard in the big city, but recent studies show that the city birds might even be evolving …
Like with pets and babies, we seem to like it when devices mimic our behaviour and social patterns. In the process of domesticating technology, we teach products to behave like …
The standard story of the cowboy hat goes something like this: In 1865, J.B. Stetson went out west during the California gold rush. He observed that bowlers, raccoon hats, and …
The Senseless Drawing Robot is a painting robot that interprets nearby street and sidewalk traffic and turns it into sprays of pigment. The robot is turning chaos into order, and …
There's a new threat to the world's unemployed. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a robot that helps to organize shop inventories, making that trip to the …
For doom-mongers delight, the Berlin-based design studio Bold Futures made a handy interactive graph of the fatal disasters that might snuff us.
French photographer Stéphane Couturier provides us with an intimate peek inside the womb of a Toyota car factory north of Paris, France. The highly abstract photos of car parts, …
Heather Dewey-Hagborg just needs a strand of your hair to know what you look like.
Taking a cue from the human brain, a new microchip can rewire itself after damage.
Looking at this nextnatural comic, our co-evolutionary relationship with technology might need some work.
Will writing software eventually replace journalists?
There are robots that look like people, and then there are robots, like the Ecobot III, that look nothing like humans but have our same biological needs: they have to eat, digest …
How can we anticipate what happens after the technological singularity?
Media artist, filmmaker and wonderjunkie Jason Silva talks about technological evolution and why humans are gods with anuses.
For those who "eat meat, but don't like in-vitro meat, because it is so unnatural" . Please spend 5 min to watch this video and change your thinking. You were watching the …
If you're a fish, and want to keep your original tongue, better keep your mouth closed.
In a recent feel-good article, WIRED wrote about a special group of homeless friends in Florida who, equipped with laptops, phones and free WiFi, manage to make ends meet making …
With advances in genomics, imaging and other technology,scientists have to face the age of big data.
Nongenetic evolution strikes again in the elaborate shape of the treble clef.
Buckle up for another cinematic espresso shot from our favorite performance philosopher Jason Silva.
From small stores to the US government, what the world thinks of bitcoin.
The ambulance drone: an autonomously navigating mini aeroplane that can quickly deliver a defibrillator.
There is a similarity between strings of binary and strands of organic DNA: they both carry actionable information encoded into reconfigurable symbols. Using nature’s biodiversity …
The dissected motorcycle learns us that, like in old nature, much of the inner workings of next nature are occluded to us.
The online course to get your drone driver’s license for civil use.
The Google self-driving car has driven 700.000 miles by itself, and now it can drive through busy city streets.
Robots are coming to replace humans at work, are they a real threat to the world’s unemployed?
The latest subspecies in the Razorius line is the Razorius Gilletus Flexball. While Gillete proclaims they reinvented shaving, others argue Gillette's new razor is everything that's wrong with America.
In 1925 futurists envisioned a sort of aerial civilization in the sky of New York City.
The '50s robot band, Le Trio Fantastique, is exemplary of human distant longing for technology that integrates with our body and senses, to the point of taking our place!
Researchers created a robo-feline able to run and bound while completely untethered.
Empathy for Robots. May cause feelings of Anthropomorphobia.
Indium gallium arsenide couldbe the material of the new super computer chips of the future.
We have entered the Anthropocene epoch, in which humanity and its instrumentalities are the most potent and influential geological force.
Many scientists believe that we will soon be able to preserve our consciousness indefinitely. This could be done by copying and transferring these contents into a computer, or by piecemeal replacement with parts of the brain gradually replaced by hardware.
Social roboticist Heather Knight explains why we should give robots personalities.
An expedition along the supply chain, visiting factory floors and productions lines of our fluffy red Santa hats, shiny baubles, tinsel and fake plastic trees. Merry Christmas!
Computer can already beat us in many tasks. Complicated calculation, processing speed and chess, to name a few. However, generally speaking, you’re still likely to be more …
The use of armed drones has dramatically escalated in the war in Pakistan.
The image on the left is a car, as we know them. It has a lot of digital technology in it already, but not nearly as much as the other one.
Emily Howell is an interactive interface able to compose and perform her own pieces of music.
Dutch developer Jeffrey van der Goot got questioned by the police after one of his Twitter Bot released a tweet containing a death threat.
Robots can already read, talk and reason. Yet, they do not seem to have found limits to their artistic skills either. Meet DOUG_1, first the drawing robot.
The Campaign Against Sex Robots, recently launched, is pushing towards banning the continuation of sex robots development.
Japanese fashion brand Buyma created this video with a wink, wherein drones play a crucial role.
Starship, a robot that will remodel our local deliveries system.
With its 656 beds, this hospital offers unconventional and leading computerized assistance for all sorts of patients.
From chef, to nurse, and also lover. Get ready, a new generation of robots is going to invade our lives!
This year's Halloween, Google asked children from the neighborhood to come by in their spooky outfits and play around the self-driving cars.
Stewart is a tactile interface that mediates the communication between human and self-driving car.
The glitch meant many woke an hour earlier than usual, leaving not just phone customers but whole households unhappy about rising early.
The first ever circus consisting entirely of drones is coming to Amsterdam. This fall the Amsterdam Arena will host a choreographed airshow using nothing but drones combined with …
A futuristic Japanese hotel will be run by robots, designed to be extremely human-like.
Dystopian future scenarios filled with evil robots are everywhere. We are afraid of robots treating us badly, but what will happen if it'll be the other way around? According to …
According to a study our PC, equipped with a list of things we "Like" on Facebook , knows us better than our friends.
An AI was intended to improve human-like experiences in regards to the company’s customer service chatbots, but has fallen into a suicidal depression instead.
The first self “driving” boat will be entering the canals of Amsterdam in 2017 with versatile ends.
China's government fabricates about 488 Million social media posts every year as a strategy to distract from critics to the regime.
On the aftermath of such a historic day for Britain and the EU, it's easy to get swayed into the polarities of political discourse, particularly on social media and the Internet, where things heat up and move fast. The results of the referendum have just come out, and the Internet is already burning with tension. This is called "climate change" - just not the one you are used to hear about.
After reports of Samsung phones causing serious damage, plane delays and even hospitalization, the company made a first recall. However, the new phones were still bursting into flames.
Dave Hakkens wins the 2016 ECO coin Award for his incredible work on the Precious Plastic recycling machines.
MIT researchers have developed a system of traffic control that will make traffic lights obsolete.
Would you vote for an artificial intelligence to govern our society?
Disney’s latest attraction? 300 drones flying in formation.
Drone racing: a new sport, where competitors drive drones at a speed of 70 mph. They control the drone by distance, using video goggles.
Facebook had just fired their curatorial team for the ‘Trending’ news section over an algorithm, resulting in false stories attacking a news anchor, a writer, and Mac Donald’s.
Researchers are teaching drones to recognize and follow forest trails.
Japan is the first country to accept the bitcoins as payment method for basic services.
The KaraokeBot is an AI system that generates and sings Christmas songs from the visual components of an uploaded image.
Soon we won’t program computers anymore, we’ll train them like dogs.
While robots are becoming more and more human, with all their sensors and information processing abilities, may it be likely that they too could develop mental illnesses?
When an autonomous car has to make a decision, will self-interest or the public good predominate?
Our workshop with kids from Lanterna Magica, an unconventional primary school in Amsterdam.
What happens when someone places a virtual property on top of a physical one?
Nigel Gifford is developing a drone that will be relatively inexpensive, disposable and edible.
It took less than 24 hours for Twitter to corrupt an innocent AI bot and teach it morally repugnant things.
Watch this robot solving the Rubik's Cube in 1.047 second.
In the last months we've been witnessing a refugee crisis of huge proportions. More than a million people crossed the sea to flee violence in Africa and the Middle-East. Together …
An industrial robot just tattooed the first person ever in San Francisco.
Meet Amelia, the first robot to work along with human coworkers in a council job.
A new wave of automation lies in pizza. Not only will robots deliver your pizzas in the future, they will even make them.
The first time you switch on your self-driving car, punch in your coordinates and cruise off to the soulless thrum of an electric motor you’ve got to wonder: does this thing know what it’s doing?
A driverless convoy of trucks drove through Europe and safely arrived in Rotterdam yesterday.
Sunspring is a Sci-Fi short movie entrirely written by an artificial intelligence.
An experiment tries to prevent crime by identifying aggressive behavior with new surveillance technology before actual violence is used.
Jill Watson has been performing as teaching assistant for 5 months, but she is not a real person, and students didn't notice.
In suburbia, we hope to get away from it all. Unfortunately, everyone else has the same idea. Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers!
German aerial-photography group Cooper Copter is exploring “vandalism 2.0” with drones that throw paint bombs.
The experimental solar powered airplane Solar Impulse 2 succeeded its record-breaking journey over the Pacific. The Swiss team is now developing the next step of the project: solar drones.
IBM's Watson succeeded in creating its first-ever movie trailer for the upcoming sci-fi thriller Morgan.
What’s Flying There? is a coloring book that opens up new perspectives for drones applications in the human habitat.
One fan has become so impatient for the conclusion to "Game of Thrones", he's programmed an AI to write it for him. Move over, George R.R. Martin!
Chef Watson knows over 10.000 recipes. The highbrow robotic cook invited us over for dinner during the first Neo-Futurist Dinner at Mediamatic.
Researchers at Virginia Tech are studying the risk of injury from a drone collision by hitting a crash test dummy in the head.
Airbus and Italdesign unveil modular urban land and air transport system.
Our Next Nature Habitat VR experience has won the Sweden International Virtual Reality Award in the category Best 360 Video!
Lego announced the next generation of building bricks, bringing the creations to life.
The Punishment is an installation featuring a robotic arm that mimics a kid's handwriting perfectly, and repetitively writes "I must not hurt humans".
The Pyramid of Technology toolkit is a workshop-in-a-box that helps you better understand technology and catalyze innovative processes.
The Dutch province Gelderland-South uses two educational robots to increase kids' knowledge on such a technology.
A new report recommends that we decide the legal status of robots sooner rather than later. It even suggests that they could be given personhood and rights.
Passenger-carrying drones will hit the skies in Dubai this summer.
The story of money, an accessible roadmap from prehistory to digital age, from cows to credit, from gold mining to bitcoin mining. This episode: gold.
The story of money: an accessible roadmap from prehistory to digital age - from cows to credit, from gold mining to bitcoin mining.
The story of money: an accessible roadmap from prehistory to digital age, from cows to credit, from gold mining to bitcoin mining. This episode: paper.
The story of money: an accessible roadmap from prehistory to digital age, from cows to credit, from gold mining to bitcoin mining. This episode: shells.
A robot inspired by a sloth was developed in order to control crops growing in our fields.
Drone made to rescue in bad weather condition in open waters.
In various parts of the world, access to education is, or risks becoming, a huge crisis. UNESCO estimates that around 20 million new teachers are needed worldwide - and that's not …
Blockchain is useful for more than cryptocurrency. It’s revolutionizing industry after industry. Next, it may change the way we get our food. The agriculture industry is complex. …
In Ancient Greece the people were part of a direct-democracy, this means that they would directly vote for policies and laws. Nowadays, it seems as though this horizontal approach …
It’s clear that driverless cars will revolutionize the way we get from Point A to Point B. Perhaps less obvious is how it’ll change our sex lives. According to a new study by the …
Today is Earth Day! This means that we think about the relationship between man, nature and technology, as technology is becoming a nature of its own. Acknowledged in 192 …
Today, artificial intelligence is doing all kinds of things: It can write an episode of game of thrones , it may revolutionize the teaching industry , and it's drawing new streets …
If you teach a robot to fish, it’ll probably catch fish. However, if you teach it to be curious, it’ll just watch TV and play video games all day. Researchers from Open AI …
As a cybercrime detective, you search for suspicious patterns that indicate crime in the digital domain.
With the invention of the radio antenna in the late 19th century, we became a different species: Introducing the human insect. A species, able to communicate across oceans using …
Before fully autonomous cars take over our streets, we may experience a transition phase: Fasten your seatbelts, as Nissan introduced a so-called Brain to Vehicle (B2V) system to …
They say lightning never strikes twice, but it appears to be striking a lot more often in some areas of ocean than others. New research published in Geophysical Research Letters …
The story of money: an accessible roadmap from prehistory to digital age, from cows to credit, from gold mining to bitcoin mining. The final episode: bits.
The story of money: an accessible roadmap from prehistory to digital age, from cows to credit, from gold mining to bitcoin mining. This episode: plastic.
While many love to speculate about the sheer number of jobs that robots and artificial intelligence are going to replace in the near future, no one seems to be coming up with any …
Don’t adjust your TV set, that’s just a new computer-generated news anchor working out the bugs. Xinhua, a Chinese state-run media company, and Sogou, a Beijing-based search …
What makes us human? And why do we sometimes fear artificial intelligence? And what about technological singularity - the moment in time when artificial intelligence outperforms …
The idea that AI can compose electronic music may sound a little off to people. It raises essential questions about creativity as a product exclusive to humans: can an AI be …
As we showed with HUBOT , we can use new technologies and robotics to make our work more enjoyable, interesting and humane. Aside from our speculative jobs, a lot of robotic …
Delve into the science and fiction of robots at V&A Dundee’s latest exhibition: Hello, Robot . Contemplate the existence of robots and how they have both shaped, and been …
Berlin is kicking off its cultural season with the not-to-miss 23th installment of Transmediale . This year the digital art/culture festival focuses on how feelings are made into …
The spread of the coronavirus has led to the cancellation or postponement of many events around the globe. Luckily there are still events we can look forward to, such as the AI …
Like it or loathe it, the robot revolution is now well underway and the futures described by writers such as Isaac Asimov , Frederik Pohl and Philip K. Dick are fast turning from …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Want to see your work here? Get in touch and …
We live in turbulent times. Thanks to science and technology, we are able to perceive our environment down to the atomic level. We can read DNA, manipulate cells, cut and paste …
Die Natur verändert sich mit uns (English version: Exploring Next Nature ) by Koert van Mensvoort , published in Entry Paradise, Neue Welten des Designs, Gerhard Seltman, Werner …
This project - the Next Nature Network - is about Nature's brand image. One might surmise that "Nature," being 100 percent all-natural, can't have any brand image. The facts …
All buildings today have something in common: They are made using Victorian technologies. This involves blueprints, industrial manufacturing and construction using teams of …
In 2009 the Initiative for Science, Society and Policy coined the phrase ‘living technology’ [1] to draw attention to a group of emerging technologies that are useful because they …
As cities push to the edges of the wilderness, wild animals are increasingly com
Ever notice how ant colonies so successfully explore and exploit resources in the world … to find food at 4th of July picnics, for example? You may find it annoying. But as an …
The first time I explained biomimicry to a stranger was not in a talk or a workshop but in a big-box bookstore just after Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature had come out. I …
As modern humans, we are out of balance with our natural environment. With use of technology, we try to prolong our human lifespan and create materials that live longer than we …
We now live in a world where plastics are becoming a part of our marine ecosystems. As a result, we strive hard to clean the plastics from our oceans. Dr. Max Liboiron ( Michif …
Every piece of plastic that’s ever made, still exists. It results in a floating garbage dump in the ocean, full of life. While this (geo)design was never intentional, humans …
At the edge of the woods along the motorway near the Dutch town of Bloemendaal, there stands a mobile telephone mast disguised as a pine tree. This mast is not nature: at best, it …
A critical and visual take on culturally emerged Nature. Full of statements from designers and thinkers from around the globe. Wild systems, Genetic Surprises, Calm Technology, …
For the Venezuelan Magazine Platanoverde , Gabriela Valdivieso y Lope Gutiarrez-Ruiz interviewed artist/scientist Koert van Mensvoort and discussed some of the idea's behind Next …
Rule #1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Remember Isaac Asimov's classic three laws of robotics ? Surely thats …
A renewable energy technology company in Australia designed this power generation system inspired by the shape of the tailfins of sharks, tuna and mackerel. The currents on the …
In 1961, the name of Marshall McLuhan was unknown to everyone but his English students at the University of Toronto – and a coterie of academic admirers who followed his abstruse …
I remember the smoke the most. That pungent smell permeating the camps of tribal people. Everything they touch is infused with the lingering perfume of smoke – their food, …
Digital and genetic techniques increasingly influence life. Our belief in progress through technology stands in the way of a moral debate on this development. By Rinie van Est We …
Interview with Liam Young on his work in speculative architecture, the future, and our role in nature as humans.
The pattern on the Animal Sweater suggests a new way to experience commercial imagery. The Animal sweater, designed by Karl Grandin, was first shown at The Biggest Visual Power …
Imagine your cruise to the Galapagos came with a ghoulish warning: "Your hair will fall out, your skin will blister, you'll probably get cancer and your children's children might …
On Youtube, there's a whole sub-genera of safari videos that show, in gruesome detail, what exactly it means to live and die in Old Nature. The above film is a particularly …
Earn points in an online game by destroying real-life CCTVs.
Do humans exist merely to make money and use resources? Vandana Shiva believes humans have a higher purpose.
As technology evolves, what today seems like science fiction may be the job market of tomorrow: 11 professions of the future.
With cities covering growing area of land, we humans and our spaces build the new wilderness for animals and plants.
Researchers are experimenting with a new technology that would be able to grow drones from chemical compounds.
We asked Shubhendu Sharm, our first ECO coin award nominee about his method, business and hopes for the future.
The oldest known serious candidate forerunner for the bicycle is the ‘running machine’ built by the German Baron Karl von Drais. His two-wheeled machine became known as the …
Designers face an unprecedented urgency to alter their methods and reprioritize their goals to address the accelerating degradation of the environment. This new …
The way people get around is starting to change, and as a professor of transport strategy I do rather wonder if the modes of transport we use today will still be around by the …
In configuring our next nature, artists and scientists explore new languages that move beyond the Anthropocene - the era of human beings. These semantics would bridge the gap …
Nonhuman Nonsense is a research-driven design and art studio existing somewhere between utopia and dystopia. They wonder upon our relationship with the non-human, embracing …
Since the early days of the net, the electronic pastoral has lent itself to all sorts of dubious agendas pushed by science, the military and even libertarian tendencies. In the …
Lecture on Next Nature this Wednesday at the UCSD Center for Research in Computing and the Arts in San Diego. Expect wild trees, wild beaches, and wild systems.
You can watch it grow in front of your eyes. Via Core.form-ula .
Imagine we would have an alternative monetary currency for environmental value. Would the rain forest still be destroyed if there existed an ECO–currency to express its value and …
Viktor Navorski is an Eastern European traveler – portrayed by Tom Hanks, who in the movie ‘Cast Away’ already played a man stranded on an uninhabited island – that finds himself …
The human environmental impact on our planet is hardly underestimated nowadays. Scientist agree humans are to blame for Global Warming – some are already dreaming up scenario’s of …
In The Watchers , the creative geniuses at Studio Smack picture a world where surveillance systems don't just watch us - they actively judge. Are you a green-coded Conformist or …
Now here is an hands-on example of ‘guided growth‘ as a way to steer complex systems.
The nature of humanity in the twenty-first century is, according to sociologist Steve Fuller, a ‘bipolar disorder’ beset with dualisms of identification such as divine/animal, …
The Singularity , as popularized by Ray Kurtzweil, refers to a near term, theoretical time when machine intelligence greatly surpasses our own. At this point we will experience a …
Drones are the mosquitoes of the 21st century. A small town in Colorado will be voting on an ordinance for drone hunting licenses for shooting down the wild robotics.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg discusses the promises and realities of synthetic biology.
Indian fragile DIY electronic infrastructure gives an insight into our complex electronic wire systems.
We had the honor of hosting Bruce Sterling in our Next Nature Network headquarters to talk to him about the concept of the convergence of humans and machines.
Solar eclipse may impact power supply due to increased use of solar panels
We humans are changing. We have become so intertwined with what we have created that we are no longer separate from it. We have outgrown the distinction between the natural and the artificial. We are what we make.
We tend to believe that the fruit and the vegetables we eat today are "natural" and the same as they always were. It turns out that in the past this familiar food didn't look like this at all.
We live in a world in which we control the biology of a tomato at such precision, you could think of it as a product of technology, instead of a product of nature. Think about it, …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
The way we currently build is not sustainable. We will have to develop a sustainable living environment that matches our human needs, intuitions and potential.
Here 's a work by Theodore Watson (Amsterdam) on the face of the Maritime Hotel (New York) The particles are attracted to one another but will repel away from the non-lit windows. …
In the Kenyan wildlife conservancy Ol Pejeta elephants are tagged with a GPS-triggered text messaging device. Before the elephants start raiding the nearby villagers' harvest they …
The comparison graphics are a bit dull after a while, but I think this video illustrates how people deal with the forces of Next Nature; If we want to understand why managers, …
At Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Christopher Love and colleagues are working to find out whether energy from trees can be used to prevent forest fires. A sensor system …
An advertisement campaign for MIO GPS systems. Via Scene 360 . Related: Observing Next Nature , Waves of Asphalt , Magic Highway USA , Interchange , Exploding City .
Climate change is often thought to have its winners and losers, with Canada, Nordic countries and Russia being portrayed as among the lucky few chilly nations where moderate …
These two co-workers found out the face tracking feature of the utterly advanced HP webcam will not recognize or track black faces. Hewlett Packard says it's because the program …
Nanotechnology has been hailed for its benefits because of the potential ability to create drugs that could cure cancer and radiation poisoning, make miniature pollutant filters …
Along with the Heck cattle and Scottish Highlanders , another reconstructed species roams the Dutch dunes . The sturdy Konik horse , also known as the Polish primitive, is the …
Mega-agro-biotech corporation Monsanto recently denied that insects have developed resistance to their patented Bt corn . Injected with a bacterial gene toxic to corn rootworms, …
Intentionality separates culture from nature. A dog is intentional, a fox is not; a park is intentional, a forest is not. Since trash, ruined buildings, and automated computer …
Thanksgiving is fake-for-real. While it's true that there was a minor harvest feast in 1621, held by English immigrants and Wampanoag Indians, the event was never celebrated …
The sublime is an aesthetic concept of 'the exalted,' of beauty that is grand and dangerous. Through 17th and 18th century European intellectual tradition, the sublime became …
From the exhibit "What Machines Dream Of" in Berlin comes Life Writer , a work by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. As the participant types, letters are projected on a …
Famed for its jaguars, orchids, and horrifying parasites, the Amazon is just as famous for what it lacks: human presence. For many years, the prevailing wisdom has been that …
As the NANO Supermarket opens discussions on the ethics, purpose and usability of nanotechnology, Frederik De Wilde is researching its artistic possibilities. De Wilde is a guest …
Like we did to old nature before, we must now cultivate our technological environment.
Rayfish CEO Raymond Ong recorded a video response in which he analyzes the controversy around his genetically engineered stingray leather sneaker. Highly recommended for nextnature connoisseurs.
Plants have it tough. They're tasty, silent, and stuck to the spot. With Jurema Action Plant, artist Ivan Henriques has given plants the mobility they deserve . Henriques' pieces …
Is the neon green tetra GloFish soon to be the florescent, transgenic terror of America's waterways? The internet hype machine has repeated ad infinitum the Washington Post's …
A new study from the marine conservation group Oceana reveals that a full one-third of seafood across the US is mislabeled. Not surprisingly, the most expensive fish is also the …
In the warming Arctic, an area the size of the US is now covered in vegetation.
Tired your ugly duds? Sick of surveillance drones? Does Adam Harvey have the clothing for you!
The introductory essay from the Yes, Naturally book - available in our store!
At times it seems we serve our technology as much as it serves us. The OFFTIME App wants to save us from our own devices.
The next step is to embrace and celebrate how cultural artifacts are escaping control, becoming autonomous, and forming the “next nature”.
Bioengineer Drew Endy shares his idea of biology as a precision manufacturer that could potentially transform civilization as we know it.
A new way to project yourself against sharks while enjoying your favorite watersport!
Digital bits have lives. They work for us, but we totally ignore them. What do bits really want? Here are the life stories of four different bits.
The Random Darknet Shopper, with bitcoin to burn, has purchased counterfeit jeans, master keys, dodgy cigs and even a bag of ecstasy tablets. Who is legally liable?
It seems thinking machines could put the human race in danger. How realistic these fears are?
When there is such abundance of areas where IoT could be applied, several ridiculous, unnecessary products are inevitable.
Norman Foster's project for a Droneport that will give a valid, affordable alternative to reach and bring help to remote areas.
While we can’t just leave the coast permanently without upsetting the delicate balance of this new environment we created, we can take better care of it to ensure that it is around for years to come.
Have you ever wondered what the infosphere looks like? Dutch designer Richard Vijgen’s app Architecture of Radio is a field guide to the hidden world of digital networks.
A recent study demonstrated how artificial light is a serious threat to plant pollination. It puts plant reproduction in danger, as well as the whole ecosystem.
We know how it feels to catch a cold; how might it feel to catch malware?
Offshore renewable energy resources, such as floating solar arrays, have begun to pop up around the world.
Volvo's driverless car system has trouble recognizing kangaroos because it gets confused by the hopping of the marsupial.
Replika is your friend for life. He is 100% AI chatbot that you “raise” by chatting with it.
This is post number three of our serie 'Robots at Work'. In this episode we present you five jobs for facilitators, the ones who love to work with technology.
Visual artist Heleen Blanken explores the complex relationship between people, nature and technology.
Every ecology needs balance. So that's also true for the ecology of the office. The office is a ecology that is highly regulated: temperature, light, humidity, distance to other …
Animal Nextnature! Using an animal as part of your lego creation. A 'behaviour block' can track the behaviour of the animal inside. This behavior is the nused to drive the Lego …
They make whale-like sounds, they feed, float and flock: Autonomous Light Air Vessels. video | alavs.com
by Richard Brautigan (1968) I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammels and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure …
An actress in Atlanta, has tried to answer her phone to the thrrrrup, thrrrrup, thrrrrup of a truck bouncing down a pothole-pocked street. Others say they thought they heard …
The extent to which new technologies are intervening with everyday life can hardly be underestimated. Virtual realities, nano- and biotechnology are increasingly providing new …
The Ticker Garden is a stand-alone data visualization application that monitors a stock portfolio. Different flowers represent the real-time performance of selected stocks via the …
Generative graphics and organic information design are making their way into the world of the applied arts. For the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, …
Electricity itself is a natural phenomena, but as regular AC/DC currency it becomes a commoddity. But Green Electricity is a strange thing. You pay more money for your electricity …
You know.. cells have feelings too... and friends.. Check the video here
There are people who think what makes a good wine comes from nature - factors like rain and soil and temperature. Then there are those who think it's a matter of second nature - …
Since its launch in November 2004, World of Warcraft (Wow) has become the most widely played massively multiplayer online (MMO) game in the world. When a popular WoW player died …
One day you will step into the garden to look at the flowers - and the flowers will look back at you. Rich Fletcher, Nikolai Slavov, and Hiroshi Ishii from MIT Tangible Media …
A group of computer researchers from Amsterdam have demonstrated that it is possible to insert a software virus into radio frequency identification tags, part of a microchip-based …
RAP is a new generation of painting robots designed for Museum or long exhibition displays. It is completely autonomous and need very little assistance and maintenance. RAP …
Did you ever wonder where all that hard drive space went too? Sequoiaview generates organic-like views of the files and folders on your hard drives using cushion treemaps. …
Epic is a fictional prospect (from 2004) on the future culture of media and internet-corporations. The human addiction to news and information must - according to this video - …
No, I am not sure if and how this distressed airplane wearing its passengers luggage on its back relates to our research topic. Anyhow, it is the peculiar image of the week. The …
J. Perthold (Germany) has a cat called Mr. Lee; a cat with a cam! Through smart circuit-engineering, the VistaQuest Digital Keychain takes pictures every minute for 48 hours on …
Inventors keep coming up with new ways to exploit RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags. Now Kodak wants to use them to probe a person's digestive system. RFID tags are tiny …
Packet Garden is an experimental artwork that seeks to provide an alternative and accessible approach to visualizing daily internet use. Plants are also grown for each protocol …
A periodic table of the most popular websites on the internet . websites are categorized according to search engines, internet tools, site ranking, aggregators, web comics, …
We are all born in a world that has been designed already. Cars, dishwashers, dildo's, remote controls, ATM machines. Although these products are supposed to make life better, …
In the 1960s, Dr. Peter Witt gave drugs to spiders and observed their effects on web building. Meet the cocaine, LSD, and the crack spider. Corny Alert!
Amal has two RFID implants, one in each hand. His left hand contains a 3mm by 13mm EM4102 glass RFID tag that was implanted by a cosmetic surgeon. His right hand contains a 2mm by …
A short video showing a live o utbreak of malware named Small.DAM. Are we looking at the weather report of the future here?
The good people of NextNature.net congratulate Google.com with its tenth anniversary. See also: Google 2084 , Google DNA , Google manhole , Googling in physical space , Google …
This installation is called Feed and raises ferns that can survive under conditions of extreme lighting. The television screens provide light to the plants, which grow …
Nature is itself a free market system. A rain forest is an unplanned economy, as is a coral reef. The difference between an economy that sorts the information and energy in …
Ten tons of cement were pourred into this grasscutters ant colony, revealing a subterranean structure of 8 meters / 26 feet deep. 'Ant-City' was built including circulating …
This weeks peculiar image is a work by Zeger Reyers. In 2001 he vaccinated some everyday objects - found in the basement of Rotterdam Art Centre Witte de With - with oyster …
Economy is ecology . At least, according to the biomimicmarketeers of the US Wachovia Bank who created this weather report like newspaper advertisement. Nowadays most people worry …
Controlling hurricanes could save lots of lives and dollars. According to a study published in by climate physicist Daniel Rosenfeld , adding dust to Hurricane Katrina's base …
No, this isn't the newest picture of some star system or nebula taken by Hubble telescope in deep space. This is a map of the internet. It might not be of much use since it is …
Inspired by the death of his grandfather, LEGO builder Shannon Ocean visualizes the chaos that lies beyond death in this thoughtful and somewhat disturbing piece called " Letting …
Now there is an interesting biomimicmarketing technique we had not seen before. For their new marketing campaign internet security company Messagelabs worked with digital artist …
In 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of the world's population will be living in towns and cities . By 2030 this number will swell to almost 5 billion, with …
In the weeks towards the Biggest Visual Power Show 2008 we post a few video's of earlier power show presentations. Philosopher Prof. Dr. Jos de Mul – author of countless articles …
The RepRap is a selfreproducing 3D printer. The 3D printer 'prints' his own components by melting tiny plastic particles together. Imagine what would happen if this 3D printer …
The struggle between the born and the made is being fought out in a wardrobe on Saturn. By: 1stavemachine.com | Related: Sixties Last
An installment in the series of: " Things I have learned in my life so far ". sagmeister.com These dividing pages for Austrian magazine .copy spell out:"Starting / a / charity / …
Now that we've recognized the internet as a living entity , we can begin to wonder what the internet is thinking of. Would it be possible to communicate? Ask questions? Read its …
In the Netherlands, there is a raging debate about a movie nobody ever saw. It seems that images have become so powerful, we don't even need them anymore to scare the hell out of …
In our NextNature event BVPS (May 2008), Kevin Kelly spoke of technology as the 7th kingdom of life : a form of evolution whithout the nasty side–effect of dying (Every object …
"Nature adapts, even to human actions that seem to destroy everything. The amazing power of evolution has given birth to a new species of insect. Their ideal habitats are old …
Pe Lang and Zimoun have created a range of sound objects, also referred to as the Untitled Sound Objects . These sound objects are mainly triggered by simple vibration motors, …
Computerworld reports a big spam-spewing botnet, that was shut down a few weeks ago, has been resurrected and is again under the control of criminals. The "Srizbi" botnet returned …
By MARCEL VAN DER DRIFT. Ten years from now, a cell phone gently sinks to the bottom of the river. It's one of the latest models. The clever design, trendy colours and nifty …
Designer Jin-wook Hwang from South Korea came up with the idea of replanting and reforesting arid areas using seed bombs . When airdropped, the bombs disassemble themselves, …
Its title might be self-explanatory and it sure looks intriguing... however kokkugia fails to give a thorough description for this architectual piece. Classified as 'peculiar …
By DAVID BARBOZA SHANGHAI — China made public on Tuesday regulations aimed at cracking down on the use of virtual currencies amid worries that a huge underground economy was …
Starting February 2009 the Industrial Design department of the Eindhoven University of Technology takes Next Nature as one of its educational themes. The Industrial Design …
" It took just 10 minutes for a dozen prairie dogs to outwit the creators of the Maryland Zoo's new $500,000 habitat. Aircraft wire, poured concrete and slick plastic walls proved …
The US Food and Drug Administration is holding up the delivery of an iMac because they seem to think it is an apple, not an Apple. I don’t want to believe that either UPS or the …
Rather than trying to delay or avoid a flue infection, why not plan it? The INFLU flu collector mask helps you to get sick when you want to. The INFLU mask is outfitted with a …
TED talk by Steward Brand – the man who helped usher in the environmental movement in the 1960s and '70s – has been rethinking his positions on cities, nuclear power, genetic …
Filippo Minelli envisions Google total world domination in his very own stickery manner. See also: Google tracks flue via sick searchers , Google 2084 , Google DNA , Google …
The Google Opt Out Feature Lets User protect their privacy by moving to a desolate village where the are guaranteed an environment free from Google products. Participants will …
We have lived for 200 years in a growth economy . That's more than a lifetime, so it is no surprise people tend to think of economy as infinitely growing. Herman Daly , who …
So here we are; bragging about our discoveries and great new ways of living... meanwhile we tend to forget that we are NOT the dominant species on the surface of the earth. …
Have you ever been in the situation where you spend days trying answer all of your email only to accomplish your goal and have no one to share in your victory? All you want is a …
A peculiar photo series by Hubert Blanz . Related post: Lost on the Freeway? , Observing Next Nature , Waves of Asphalt , Interchange , Exploding City , Magic Highway USA .
Fountains are peculiar objects: We associate them with nature even though they are typically entirely artificial and man-made (unless you are living in Iceland of course). …
Kevin Kelly -- senior maverick at Wired -- asks people how they see the internet and if they can, visualize it. Here is how: "The internet is vast. Bigger than a city, bigger than …
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" , a remark made by Thomas J. Watson of IBM in 1943. But what if the number of computing devices connected to each other …
Looking at a banana from a design perspective, one immediately notices the fruit is highly ergonomic and sophisticated: Bananas fit perfectly in the human hand, they come with a …
This translation of the essay ' Real Nature is not Green ' is a special treat from and for our fellow Next Nature explorers in China. We thank the people of the Microwave …
So you thought the Razorius Gilletus essay was farsighted? Interestingly enough, Samsung is advertising its latest TV-set as a whole new species . Despite the obvious …
Don't ask me what the purpose is of having your roof crowded with antennas. Solar energy roof-gardens I could understand, but antenna roof-gardens just seem hopelessly old …
Peculiar image of the week. Via Radarvirtuel , where you can see them fly in real time.
Since a few years the internet in combination with mobile phone technology brought us something that we refer to as augmented reality : A digital projection that is placed over …
No this is not some stellar system far away. What is it then? Lets make another picture, this time with the flashlight on... ...and we learn the small universe is comprised by LED …
The Eindhoven-based design team ' Edhv ' made an installation to turn creepy crawlers into genuine graphic designers. By letting crickets, woodlice, ants and many other insects …
According to this fictitious future medical bill almost every part of the human body will be repairable in 2028. Gut bacteria replacement, Bone tissue growth for skull repair, …
As a child, I already saw some great tiger potential in my cat and some shark-ish attitude in the behaviour of my goldfish. Personally, I think that since we started domesticating …
After a ban on flying last weeks due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland, the European airspace was slowly rebooting to its old state of activity. This movie shows the movement of …
Or is it a sunset? Not sure. Ubiquitous corporature either way. Image by Mieke Gerritzen .
"Have you seen my stapler? No, but just look it up on Google home office maps ." CSIRO Researchers have developed miniature sensors that track lab equipment, coffee mugs and …
Multi-touch designer and developer Richard Monson-Haefel considers sound as an important part of our user interfaces. As an application of " Calm Technology " which revolves …
The main character in ‘Being There’ (1979) is a simple-minded gardener named Chance, played brilliantly by Peter Sellars, who has spent all his life as a servant in the Washington …
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) is a film with no actors, no storyline, and no dialogue. The only things we see are landscapes, images of cities, and people going about their regular lives. …
Nomadic Plants are a species assembled from a group of robotic-electronic-biological organisms living in symbiosis in order to survive in habitats affected by human activity. The …
When searching for Next Nature in the world around us, one does not necessarily have to look at the present. The science fiction novel Jurassic Park, written in 1990 by the …
Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts, are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by using a sound broadcast to attract them into …
When fruit flies die, they don't go to heaven, but they do get to go to outer space. At least that's the conceit of artist HsienYu Cheng's Collector: Afterlife , which zaps bugs …
Modding is the act of adapting hardware/software to have it do what you want it to do, which does not always correlate with what it is originally built to do. Biomodd (ding) is …
Some blackbirds have found city living so much fun (the theater scene! the restaurants!) that they have given up migrating south for the winter. Cities are usually warmer than the …
Our historical snippet of the moment is a Canadian television fragment from 1968 featuring a debate between Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan on the implications of media …
Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Now he's drawing …
Bionic horror by designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau , who have created a clock that traps insects on flypaper before depositing them into a vat of bacteria. The resulting …
In a vivd example of the blur between culture and nature, players using an online game called Foldit have helped solve complex questions for researchers about enzyme models. The …
Artistic duo Robococo, aka Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders, have embedded a group of autonomous robots in the walls of a gallery. Wielding hammers and creepy electronic eyes, …
The rock formations in the High Altitude photo series don't exist physically, yet they are very present in our society of simulations . The photos visualize the development of the …
In this TED talk, Kevin Slavin explains how computer algorithms are breaking free of their virtual habitats and changing the physical world to their liking. Through algorithms, …
Earth has had a geosphere, atmosphere and biosphere for a few billion years. Only within the last several thousand years has earth gained a global noosphere, the intangible …
I reckoned Amsterdam did not have any sky scrapers, but I guess I wasn't looking through the right lenses. This sms-traffic Amsterdam skyline – made on new years eve 2007 – was …
Tweenbots are small robots that depend on the kindness of strangers. They are only able to move straight forward and do this constantly. Once they get stuck in a hole or at a …
Our proposal to study the financial system as an ecosystem is sometimes criticized as 'abuse of vegetational concepts'. Interestingly enough BBC documentary maker Adam Curtis now …
" The Institute for Digital Biology researches next steps in the evolution of the internet, where websites and services develop into living creatures ." This scenario lives in the …
Ever wished you could take a shower with pigeon poop? Artist Tuur van Balen proposes changing pigeons from flying rats to cleaning agents. A speculative, specially engineered …
In the film Plastic Bag , the title character spends a lifetime (or more) on a quest for a creator not even aware of his existence. A stunning short by Ramin Bahrani, director of …
The economic system and profit motive has been a driving force that steers and even dictates social change. Investors and stockbrokers have been a major influence to these social …
Artist Jaroslav Kyša has invented a novel form of social protest . By scattering seed in front of targets in London, he can attract droves of pigeons that disrupt shoppers and …
Over the last few decades, the public has been – and still is – creating awareness on the values of organically produced foods. For many foodies an important value of organic …
Scientists have developed a biomimetic robot that will be able to swim forever, since its artificial muscles are powered by water. And since Robojelly lives underwater, it will …
Researchers at Stanford and the J. Craig Venter Institute recently created the first complete computer model of an organism. The simulation models the genome and life processes …
Chef Dan Barber discusses a dilemma facing many chefs today: how to keep fish on the menu? With impeccable research and deadpan humor, he chronicles the discovery of a unique …
Whale sharks are great at filtering; plastic needs to be filtered. For now, however, whale sharks only have an appetite for plankton. Industrial designer Elie Ahovi has jumped …
"A robot is a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. Its components are usually electro-mechanical and are guided by a computer program or electronic circuitry. By …
If you've turned to plastic Christmas trees because the real ones leave piles of needles behind, science is working to bring live conifers back into your holidays. A $1.3 million …
58:10 minute interview with polymath & nextnature thinker avant la lettre Buckminister Fuller.
Have you heard of Elephantiasis? It is a disease caused by microscopic parasitic worms that cause a thickening of the skin and underlying tissues. The disease typically occurs in …
So you thought the Internet was made by and for people? Think again. A study by Incapsula , a provider of cloud-based security for web sites (mind you where this data comes from), …
The future of farming is not to be found in further mass-industrialization nor in the return to traditional farming with man and horse power, but rather in swarms of smart, cheap robotic farmers that patiently seed, tend and harvest fields one plant at a time without the need for damaging pesticides.
Philosopher and professor Jos de Mu l and media artist Geert Mul set out to visualize the Gods Browser in a unique art-science collaboration. The result is a conceptual poem of …
Montreal filmmakers Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks’ documentary feature, Surviving Progress presents the story of human advancement and reveals the risk of running the 21st …
The wunderkammer – the traditional repository of natural history curiosities and cultural relics – has been updated by the Center for PostNatural History in Pittsburgh, which …
Can you do it? Do finish your lunch before clicking the link – or you might vaporise. The video was made by Jason Silva for the ongoing TEDGlobal 2012 which has Radical Openness …
The robot in the picture above chases and attacks the living rat rights besides it. The W-3, as the robot is named, is designed to make rats seriously depressed. In fact, this …
Egyptian authorities detained a stork last week on suspicion of espionage.
"Atmospheric energy" has the power to revolutionize the production of electricity.
A Dutch artist designs a Utopian eco-socialist online society.
Ever played "telephone" or "chinese whispers" as a kid? Now, you can pit your speech recognition skills against a computer.
An algorithm observes human players to learn how to beat Super Mario Bros.
Amazon announces they want to use drones to deliver your order within a half hour at any location you choose.
Mesmerizing drone ballet from Kmel Robotics and Lexus.
Scientists learn how to harvest electricity from radio waves.
Floris Kayak discusses online hoaxes and the future of technology.
Volume magazine interviews Next Nature founder Koert van Mensvoort.
Indulge in the Next Nature stump speech at TEDx from Dr. Van Mensvoort
As we strive to milk all available energy from nature, we not only harvest but alter our surroundings in the process. By mixing the warm sea air with cooler air above, offshore …
A professor and an artist have invented a method to manufacture paint from acid mine runoff.
While Next Nature was busy dreaming up new in vitro meat (IVM) foods, the mad scientists of Terreform ONE in New York went ahead and designed an entire dwelling made of IVM pig cells.
Workers are completely controlled by algorithms in Amazon's fulfillment center
Anti Drone Tent is a small construction of emergency blankets that blocks infrared sensing, making it invisible to drones.
During a triathlon ace a drone operated by a local photographer hit one of the athletes.
Buq are electronic life forms that shift the experience of the street scape from the primarily visual to a more auditory experience.
While in old nature people build shelters to protect themselves from natural forces like wind and rain, today one has to protect oneself from nextnatural forces.
Last month graffiti artist Katsu presented his graffiti drone called the ‘’spray copter’’.
Our peculiar image of the week is titled "High Frequency Captured on the Surface of Augmented Objects" by Ryota Matsumoto , Mixed Media 140718 110cmx85cm.
Kids learn the basics of electric circuits while playing with clay.
Tinder users beware: somewhere out there a mechanical finger is surfing the popular dating smartphone app. This could be your next match.
15 seconds, that is the time it takes the mulcher monster to consume a 9 meter-tall, mature spruce – starting at the top, landing at the bottom.
Like the exorbitant feathers of the peacock, which only function is to aesthetically stand out amid its competitors, this new species of Razorius Gilletus only differs from its predecessor aesthetically.
Maybe in the future swarms of robots could help cleaning oil spills, provide immediate emergency help at a disaster or guide millions of self driving cars.
Science Fiction taught us to think of robots as human-like beings, yet the robots that actually make it into your home are more likely to look like furniture.
Producing an iPhone in 1991 would have cost 3,56 million of dollars.
"It's time to recognize the Internet as a basic human right" its inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said.
A selection of nine enthralling and striking concepts of future way of transportation.
Less than one millennium ago the Earth at night was all black. Today it is all glowing and blossoming.
Since Darwin we tend to look at the biological world exclusively in economical terms. The idea that monkey's, frogs, or even ants do more than simply propagate, doesn't find much acceptance among scientists. And yet, even crayfishes at times seem to displace objects just for fun.
Researchers from UC San Diego announced that they have developed 3D print tiny microrobots in the shape of fish able to detect and remove toxin from liquid.
Super Mario is now able to learn and feel in the confines of his 8-bit universe.
Indulge in this video simulation that displays the flight path of every commercial flight in the world over a 24-hour period.
Scientists think the laws governing the structure of galaxies in outer space are the same laws underlying the growth of cities.
A recent project, named GENESI, might make it possible for city infrastructures to communicate with us.
Ever feel the need to hear two digital mountains read your tweets aloud with deep and sonorous voices?
The Green Brain Project aims to create drones that will think, act and sense like a bee.
Architect firm Foster + Partners announced plans to build the world's first droneport in Rwanda.
City of Drones puts you in a first person view of a drone drifting through an abstract futuristic cityscape.
Kirsten Zirngibl's illustrations depict imaginary landscapes that are formed by microbots.
Dozens of American Airlines flights were grounded as pliots' iPads crashed.
Last April, a Chinese group of researchers published a paper that set the scientific world ablaze in a fierce debate. The paper was about their attempts to edit the DNA of a human …
Two American hackers have been working on hacking cars to takeover full control of vehicles.
3 Million Dogs released a funny video, which shows puppies delivered by drones.
Dom Indoors , is the latest research project developed by a construction robotics company called Asmbld . It includes a robotic system that can reconfigure an indoor space within …
While a hipster-drink bacteria are hunting space organisms, robots are catching whale snot in the open ocean.
This Is What $15.3 Trillion of World Trade Looks Like.
According to the Wikipedia page 'Wikipedia: Getting to Philosophy', more than 94% of all articles will eventually lead to the English article "Philosophy".
Our peculiar image of the week comes from the Great Barrier Reef. You've probably seen images of this vibrant underwater attraction before. If you're lucky, maybe you've seen it …
Due to an algorithmic error, Facebook mistakenly "memorialized" vital user accounts with a banner announcing the user’s passing – turning their friend walls into memorial walls.
Featuring different cities at night, the Next Nature Glowing Planet T-shirt highlights the enchanting beauty of our glimmering world.
A Bricklaying Robot builds low-cost houses in just two days.
Uber built a fake city called Almono to train self-driving cars. This town is full of fake houses, mannequins and chaotic intersections.
What the Internet would look like if all data were ephemeral?
There is a WiFi network illegally configured that interferes with the rain radar creating a ray of "clouds" that won't bring any water.
“An illegal theme park exposing the ideology of the aesthetics of hacking”. “A hybrid drone targeting technological domination”. “A psychedelic fridge to raise doubt about fake …
An "electronic personhood" for robots has been discussed in the European Parliament recently, raising big questions about equality, citizenship, legal and ironically, human rights for artificial intelligent machines.
This is post number four of our serie 'Robots at Work'. In this episode we present you five jobs for entrepreneurs, the ones who love doing big business.
Meet the incredible new species "Petramosaurus Cavator" and discover its impact on our planet.
There’s no place on earth untouched by human activity: This was clear as Lucas Foglia whizzed across the vast, white expanse of Alaska's Juneau Ice Field last summer. He was …
In response to the nitrogen crisis, the Dutch cabinet is planning to reduce the speed limit during the day to 100 kph. In itself a sensible decision. But it is strange that this …
Meet Pirjo Kääriäinen, professor of design driven fibre innovation at Aalto University, Finland. Kääriäinen founded CHEMARTS —a collaborative program at the university that brings …
A flock of drones that fly like birds, drifting blocks of concrete, a choreography of opening and closing flowers. The work of Studio Drift is challenging the distinction between …
Intensive agriculture may be nourishing most of the Earth’s inhabitants, but it’s doing the opposite to earth itself. Its dependence on singular crops, heavy ploughing machinery, …
Tropical forests are one of the world’s largest carbon stores and they help regulate the global climate. But they’re being erased at a terrifying rate. Deforestation claimed an …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Would you like to see your work here? Get in touch …
Biotechnology is nearly as old as humanity itself. The food you eat and the pets you love? You can thank our ancestors for kickstarting the agricultural revolution, using …
What if design began to put everything but the human first? The needs of the human not paramount to the design process, but instead the other entities that we cohabit planet earth …
The current lockdown in much of Europe has city-dwellers flocking to the countryside to wait out the outbreak sweeping the continent. Seeking relief from coronavirus, urbanites …
Today we hold the ability to gather a lot of knowledge, thanks to science. We are able to watch, analyze, manipulate and change matter to the nano-level. This makes it tempting to …
Imagine if everyone spoke a language that you don’t understand. It’s not a foreign language–it’s been spoken around you since the day you were born–but where as everyone else …
The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. -Ecclesiastes If we were able to take as the …
I vividly remember being offended throughout my high-school education because 'atoms' where consistently presented as these perfect slick round little spheres. At one time I even …
The Netherlands is known for its outright flat landscape – its even part of the name. How come the Dutch Womans Youth Rafting Team just won the World Cup in the category …
The US Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal …
Are you familiar with the affliction? Anthropomorphobia is the fear of recognizing human characteristics in non-human objects. The term is a hybrid of two Greek-derived words: …
Researchers are working on a language and a device that will help humans and dolphins talk with each other. Denise Herzing , a researcher and founder of the Wild Dolphin Project …
Blue is a beautiful color, but its sound is simply irresistible. It is the song of the unhappy and the depressed. It is a sound that touches people. It was also the sound of a …
For city-dwellers, the closest 'true wilderness' to be found is usually the weeds sprouting in abandoned lots. Snow-capped, postcard nature might be beautiful but is …
Wild salmon gets its robust pink color from a diet rich in red-hued krill. Farmed salmon are fed on fish meal, chicken byproducts, soybeans, wheat and a long list of other …
The world is alight with algae fever. In this age of deep ecological design aspirations, the range of speculative design projects based on algae technology is growing. Algae are …
In this essay, anti-civilization, anarchist philosopher John Zerzan critiques the concept of 'next nature.' He argues that rather than freeing us, our self-domestication through …
British philosopher David Pearce believes we should to stop animals from hunting and killing other animals.
The façade of an Indian temple constructed from a large-scale print of a Facebook Wall.
In glass capsules endangered rainforest flora will be able to survive regardless of what happens to their natural habitat.
Using biology as a model for innovation and progress, Alyssa Stark embodies the essence of Biomimicry.
An ecofriendly alternative to plastic lies on the surface of waste streams.
Researchers prove that pristine landscapes haven’t existed for thousands of years, therefore we should change or mindset before trying to save the planet.
There it is. A hefty hen, with its head up high and its beak out. And a gigantic VR headset over its beady little eyes. What does this battery hen see? ‘An experience of a free …
There was a time when flipping the switch, and seeing a glass bulb light up, was magical to anyone in the world. Today, the presence of a light switch in a room, is something …
Last month I had the opportunity to immerse myself in Tokyo’s newly opened digital art landscape, the Mori Digital Art Museum. The museum stands out for it enables virtual …
Rooftops covered with grass, vegetable gardens and lush foliage are now a common sight in many cities around the world. More and more private companies and city authorities are …
This question is an excerpt from the Pyramid of Technology toolkit Cooking is a process through which humans outsource part of their bodily functions to technology (think …
Historians often trace the dawn of human civilisation back 10,000 years, when Neolithic tribes first settled and began farming in the Fertile Crescent, which stretches through …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Want to see your work here? Get in touch and …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
In the past few years, scientists have hatched some pretty crazy-sounding schemes in the name of protecting Earth and its inhabitants. From building an underwater wall 120 …